Envelope Printer Brings Business to Columbus State

Before adding its new Intoprint DP-100GA+ digital envelope printer, Columbus State University Printing Services handled envelope printing a bit differently. The minimum order size it could print on its two-color ABDick was 500, and the turnaround time was between three and five days. And four-color envelopes? Forget it.

These days, though, things are a whole lot better at the nine-employee in-plant.

“We’ve been able to do as few as 25 or 30,” remarks Randall Bramlett, manager of the Columbus, Ga., facility. And thanks to the new Intoprint DP-100GA+, the turnaround time is now just 24 hours. The in-plant averages 35 to 40 jobs a month on the new printer, ranging from 50 to 500 envelopes each. These include four-color jobs, which the shop would have had to turn down in the past, Bramlett says.

“We’ve had quite a few comments about the color,” he reports, adding that the DP-100GA+ provides a “very good color match to our school colors.”

To promote this new service, the in-plant sent out a campus-wide mailing using a full-color envelope.

“From the president on down, everyone was thrilled with it,” Bramlett says.

Printing Services bought the new printer through Duplo in Atlanta, which services its UV coater.

“We know the service that we get from them,” he remarks. “It’s like any piece of equipment: it’s only going to be as good as the service that comes with it.”

He praises the machine’s ease of use.

“Anyone in the shop can operate the envelope printer,” he says, even the shop’s student workers.

With its ability to handle very short runs and incorporate variable data, the DP-100GA+ has brought new business to the in-plant.

“It kind of opens a new avenue for us, especially for 200, 300 envelopes that need to be addressed and mailed by tomorrow afternoon,” he says. “We can do it all in one pass now.”

The in-plant is about to explore yet another new avenue this fall, Bramlett adds, when it expands its mailing capabilities to include inserting, addressing, sorting, mail handling and list management.

“There’s over $200,000 a year that goes off campus for mail houses, and we want to bring that back on campus and run it through our department,” he says. The new DP-100GA+ will complement this new service by handling the short runs.

Bramlett says the in-plant already prints most of the university’s direct mail, but then it is sent to a mail house for addressing and sorting.

“We’ll be doing that from this point on,” he remarks. His goal is to have addressing and sorting equipment online by the fall, and get inserting equipment by early 2013.

“I feel like we’ll be at full capacity probably by the first part of next year,” he confirms.

That’s not all that’s new at Columbus State University Printing Services. The in-plant added a Morgana creaser six months ago and is about to install a new wide-format printer. The shop is also about to hire a graphic designer.

“We’re constantly looking to expand our services,” Bramlett says.